


Clouds

by Chameleon (ponchard)



Series: Good Old-Fashioned Passive Aggressive Discussion [3]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Academy Era, Alien Biology, Alien Culture, Eldritch Timelords, Episode: s12e03 Orphan 55, Episode: s12e04 Nikola Tesla’s Night of Terror, Fixed Points in Time (Doctor Who), Great Filter, One Shot, Other, Post-Episode: s12e01-02 Spyfall, Pre-Episode: s12e01 Spyfall Part 1, Quantum Werewolf, Short One Shot, Texting, The Doctor (Doctor Who) Lies, cosmic horror, eldritch horror, five feet apart because their minds melt spacetime like blowtorches through a tablecloth, timelords, two eldritch entities chillin in a hot tub, web of time, what if the Doctor’s fast thinking includes auto-eliminating timelines where they don’t survive, what if the Master doesn’t just expect the Doctor to survive by wit but by timeline hacking, what if timelord psychology and culture is much more inhuman than it appears on the surface
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-21
Updated: 2020-01-21
Packaged: 2021-02-25 02:48:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22348876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ponchard/pseuds/Chameleon
Summary: The Master plays with fire.Master/Doctor texting one-shot. May contain spoilers up through the Tesla episode, even though it occurs pre-Spyfall.
Relationships: The Doctor/The Master (Doctor Who), Thirteenth Doctor/O, Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan)
Series: Good Old-Fashioned Passive Aggressive Discussion [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1603681
Comments: 15
Kudos: 95





	Clouds

**invasion averted 👍  
(again)  
thanks for the tip **

of course

**mi6 really don’t know what they’ve lost**

shhhh don’t tell em

**don’t you get bored?  
being retired **

your threshold for boredom is very different to mine, doctor  
which is why I’m doing all your research 😉

**easy there, might be double-retired soon**

no I won’t

**cheeky**

the word’s “charming”

actually, that’s something I’ve been curious about  
with the research  
do I know too much?

**how do you mean?**

it’s stupid  
but in all the sci-fi stories, the alien police jump out and wipe people if they see things they’re not supposed to  
plus didn’t torchwood actually do that stuff?

**where’d you hear that?**

rumours. why, is it true?

**you don’t have to worry about it**

what comforting phrasing

**no I mean it that way  
YOU, specifically, don’t have to worry about it **

gonna elaborate?

**not sure I can explain it. it’s to do with time... sensing-ness... ness**

you HAVE to explain now

**bit like explaining dinner parties to a cyberman**

try me!!

**right. so. I can’t predict the future, first of all  
so don’t ask  
but I sort of know it **

when you say “can’t”, does that mean “physically can’t” or “can’t say it out loud without causing problems”

**those aren’t necessarily different**

oof, that’s millenia of debates on free will settled

**good question though  
the first one  
well, depending on what you mean by “I”**

part of you knows and part of you doesn’t?  
is it like a special region in your brain?

**all of me partially knows  
events are always partial to begin with  
they’re all... fuzzy and overlapping **

learn that in timelord school

**nah, terrible student**

couldn’t have guessed

**double. retired.**

**I can see it though**

you see the probability clouds?

**close  
it’s not quite probability, reality’s just squashy **

so all those multiple-worlds theories are right? there’s an evil moustache version of me somewhere??

**same world, but squashy**

that how you see the present too? am I partially here and partially not

**mostly not, in your case**

uhhhhh

**sorry, that sounded bad  
that doesn’t always mean “dead”**

insignificant?

**or I’m insignificant to you**

never

**& don’t change your trajectory  
or maybe you’re just good at keeping secrets  
so that’s why you don’t have to worry about time cops and mind wipes and that  
you’re not going to do anything dangerous to the web of time **

even after this conversation?

**it’s strange  
your big inflection point was years back  
then you trail out  
nothing I’ve said to you has changed your shape **

which is why you could say it

**most people would go all blobby if I said any of this, yeah**

blobby=bad for the universe?

**bad for me  
if someone goes to a shape I can’t see, that means “me seeing them” is incompatible with reality  
real easy way for the web of time to fix that... **

still nothing?

**I’ve never gotten this far with a human**

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

**unless they’re seconds from death**

way to kill the mood

**usually they fix it themselves, change the topic  
pleasantly surprised you’re following **

wouldn’t call myself a master of quantum physics, but I dabble  
glad you can talk to me

**me too**

even if it means I’m extremely dead

**hey you’re talking now**  
**like I said  
don’t worry about it**

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, that “mostly” implies that, in a sliver of the total timeline, O is alive and the Doctor is ACTUALLY talking to a particularly smart human. To the Doctor’s time sense, O dies **on the plane** when that last sliver collapses.
> 
> And yes, this is basically the ruleset to Quantum Werewolf.
> 
> -
> 
> Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed it, comments and kudos help solidify my waveform in ~~your~~ errrr... _this_ reality. <3


End file.
